3.9.3

Release Notes 3.9.3

Bugfixes / Changes

• PINemHI Updater: Fixed issue that the pinemhi.ini file is overwritten on update with a wrong path to VPX. You can fix this problem by simply restarting the server which self-heals the path.

3.9.2

Release Notes 3.9.2

Bugfixes / Changes

• Tables / VPS Tables: Fixed feature tag based filtering and showing all available table features in the table info of the sidebar.
• Tables / Asset Columns: Fixed missing status refresh.
• System Manager / Serum: Disabled Serum integration since this is coming with freezy 2.3 now. Existing serum dll files will be deleted from your VPinMAME directory on freezy update.

3.9.1

Release Notes 3.9.1

Bugfixes / Changes

• VPS Tables: Fixed missing VPS table version resolving for Zen Studios games.
• VPS Tables: Fixed VPS auto matching for Zen Studios games.
• VPS Tables: Removed (already half broken) table filtering from the days where only VPX games were allowed.
• VPS Tables: On the VPS tab, the name of the table inside the sidepanel can be double-clicked in order to select the text.
• Tables / Uploads: Fixed table upload dialog so that the option are shown independent of the selected upload option. The filtering is applied to all uploads, so the filter button and asset list was at the wrong location.
• Tables / Uploads: Fixed VPS auto-matching. The config flag in the upload dialog has been ignored so that an auto-match was executed for every upload type.
• Tables / Uploads: Fixed various issues when cloning tables into subfolders.
• Tables / PUP Packs: Fixed the checkbox for enabling/disabling of PUP packs again.
• Tables / PUP Packs: Added option to remote edit the available option and additional files that are listed for a PUP pack in the PUP pack section.
• System Manager / Visual Pinball: Added button to remote edit the VPinballX.ini file.
• Drop-in Folder: Fixed new star icon again.
• PINemHi: Fixed auto-updater which did not update all .exe files, but only the pinemhi.exe.
• Preferences / Discord Bot FAQ: Updated FAQ with updates screenshots and the concrete permissions info which was only available in the wiki before.

---

Release Notes 3.9

Breaking Changes

• DOF Integration: The VPin Studio no longer supports older DOF installations that have different configuration folders for 32 and 64 bit. Instead, only the new folder structure with a shared Config folder is support. Please update your installation by downloading the latest DOF version from https://github.com/mjrgh/DirectOutput/releases.

Changes

• PinballY Frontend: Added support of the pinballY frontend, like others, possibility to manage tables, favorites, playlists and media, But no media search is available. (http://mjrnet.org/pinscape/PinballY.php)

• Tables / Uploads: Re-implemented the upload dialog for media packs and large parts of the backend here. The big disadvantage of the previous version was, that archives with a backglass and frontend media must have been uploaded twice. The new dialog detects all assets types and lets you also select/de-select them for uploading. It is also used as filter/inspection dialog for table archive uploads.

  

• Tables / Asset Management View: The screen columns are sortable now.

• Tables / Table Uploads: Added additional server setting to keep the modification date of VPX files when they have been uploaded and replaced.

  

• Tables / Enable or Disable Tables: In the context menu of tables, a menu item to enable/disable the selected table has been added. This action works as a bulk action and is applied to all selected games.

  

• Tables / Notes Box: In notes dialog, the help texts //TODO, //ERROR and //OUTDATED are clickable and insert their text in the comment box.

• Tables / VPS Entry: In the VPS tab, the VPS table version links to VPF or VPU has a context menu that can be used to insert a TODO note in the table

  

• Tables / Future Pinball: The support for Future Pinball has been massively improved.

  • Added the launch button to launch Future Pinball tables.
  • Added columns that were previously not shown for Future Pinball.
  • Added the possibility to upload Future Pinball tables.
  • Added ability to match Future Pinball tables against the VPS database.
  • The VPS versions dropdown has been filtered to show only versions of same emulator type as the selected table.
  • The backglass manager now displays all backglasses coming from all VPX and FP emulators.

• Preferences / Backglass Server: Selection of emulator is no more needed, uses instead the B2SServer installation folder.

• Preferences / System Settings: Added the new preferences menu System Settings where operating relevant settings are configured. The auto-shutdown and shutdown options have been moved to this new preference page.

• Preferences / System Settings: Added the new option Disabled Sticky Keys to disable the sticky key options of Windows.

  

• Tables: Added edit and open button to the VPS and backglass manager view for a better navigation back to the table overview.

  

Bugfixes

• Studio Update/Restart Error Fixed an issue where the macOS client update process would fail to restart client. Improved macOS upgrade process. Note: the macOS update process will work correctly AFTER this release update.
• System KeyEvent Handling: Fixed key handling to avoid table deletion on DEL key press in preference panel.
• Studio Client Exit Confirmations: The question about launching the frontend on exit is now only shown if the server setting "Launch Frontend on exit" is set to false.
• Tables / PUP Packs: Fixed duplicate showing of error messages for PUP pack option scripts.
• Drop-in Folder: Fixed drop-in folder for macOS and Linux. The recursive watching of filesystem changes also works for these operating systems now.
• Drop-in Folder: Fixed menu button being initially visible even though being disabled in the preferences.
• VPS Data: Fixed issue that caused all tutorial URLs being ignored.
• Highscore Cards: Fixed missing status updates. When a backglass is uploaded, the default background information for a game is refreshed too.
• Dialog Positioning: Dialogs are now always opened on the screen the main Studio Window is located. So only the size of a dialog is restored, not the previous position.

VPin Mania

• Added Delete Table Scores button to the Player Statistics view. This way you can delete e.g. default highscores that have been pushed with your account name. I know this is not an optimal solution yet, but it helps users to at least clean up their own statistics. In the long run, some filtering must be provided to avoid the submission of default scores.

3.9.0

Release Notes 3.9

Breaking Changes

• DOF Integration: The VPin Studio no longer supports older DOF installations that have different configuration folders for 32 and 64 bit. Instead, only the new folder structure with a shared Config folder is support. Please update your installation by downloading the latest DOF version from https://github.com/mjrgh/DirectOutput/releases.

Changes

• PinballY Frontend: Added support of the pinballY frontend, like others, possibility to manage tables, favorites, playlists and media, But no media search is available. (http://mjrnet.org/pinscape/PinballY.php)

• Tables / Uploads: Re-implemented the upload dialog for media packs and large parts of the backend here. The big disadvantage of the previous version was, that archives with a backglass and frontend media must have been uploaded twice. The new dialog detects all assets types and lets you also select/de-select them for uploading. It is also used as filter/inspection dialog for table archive uploads.

  

• Tables / Asset Management View: The screen columns are sortable now.

• Tables / Table Uploads: Added additional server setting to keep the modification date of VPX files when they have been uploaded and replaced.

  

• Tables / Enable or Disable Tables: In the context menu of tables, a menu item to enable/disable the selected table has been added. This action works as a bulk action and is applied to all selected games.

  

• Tables / Notes Box: In notes dialog, the help texts //TODO, //ERROR and //OUTDATED are clickable and insert their text in the comment box.

• Tables / VPS Entry: In the VPS tab, the VPS table version links to VPF or VPU has a context menu that can be used to insert a TODO note in the table

  

• Tables / Future Pinball: The support for Future Pinball has been massively improved.

  • Added the launch button to launch Future Pinball tables.
  • Added columns that were previously not shown for Future Pinball.
  • Added the possibility to upload Future Pinball tables.
  • Added ability to match Future Pinball tables against the VPS database.
  • The VPS versions dropdown has been filtered to show only versions of same emulator type as the selected table.
  • The backglass manager now displays all backglasses coming from all VPX and FP emulators.

• Preferences / Backglass Server: Selection of emulator is no more needed, uses instead the B2SServer installation folder.

• Preferences / System Settings: Added the new preferences menu System Settings where operating relevant settings are configured. The auto-shutdown and shutdown options have been moved to this new preference page.

• Preferences / System Settings: Added the new option Disabled Sticky Keys to disable the sticky key options of Windows.

  

• Tables: Added edit and open button to the VPS and backglass manager view for a better navigation back to the table overview.

  

Bugfixes

• Studio Update/Restart Error Fixed an issue where the macOS client update process would fail to restart client. Improved macOS upgrade process. Note: the macOS update process will work correctly AFTER this release update.
• System KeyEvent Handling: Fixed key handling to avoid table deletion on DEL key press in preference panel.
• Studio Client Exit Confirmations: The question about launching the frontend on exit is now only shown if the server setting "Launch Frontend on exit" is set to false.
• Tables / PUP Packs: Fixed duplicate showing of error messages for PUP pack option scripts.
• Drop-in Folder: Fixed drop-in folder for macOS and Linux. The recursive watching of filesystem changes also works for these operating systems now.
• Drop-in Folder: Fixed menu button being initially visible even though being disabled in the preferences.
• VPS Data: Fixed issue that caused all tutorial URLs being ignored.
• Highscore Cards: Fixed missing status updates. When a backglass is uploaded, the default background information for a game is refreshed too.
• Dialog Positioning: Dialogs are now always opened on the screen the main Studio Window is located. So only the size of a dialog is restored, not the previous position.

VPin Mania

• Added Delete Table Scores button to the Player Statistics view. This way you can delete e.g. default highscores that have been pushed with your account name. I know this is not an optimal solution yet, but it helps users to at least clean up their own statistics. In the long run, some filtering must be provided to avoid the submission of default scores.

3.8.1

Release Notes 3.8.1

Bugfixes

• Tables / Emulator Filter: Fixed critical error in the emulator detection, causing empty views for non VPX emulators.
• VPin Mania / Wheel Icons: Changed loading of the wheel icons for the VPin Mania tables, so that they can be updated independently from the Studio now.

Release Notes 3.8

• Drop-In Folder: Trash-bin support: Files deleted from the drop-in folder menu are not deleted anymore, but moved to the trash-bin.
• Drop-In Folder: Added subfolders support : The drop-ins folder can now contains sub-folders that are also monitored. The drop-in section displays all files flat from the tree structure.
• DOFLinx Support: You can select your DOFLinx installation in the preferences now and auto-start it this way together with the VPin Studio Server. If configured, it will also appear inside the System Manager and can be updated there.
• Tables / Backglass Manager: Playlists Filtering : Added the possibility to filter backglasses by playlists as it is possible in the tables tab.
• Tables / VPS Tables: Search Result Highlighting: Inside the VPS Tables tab, not only the table component is filtered but the VPS table versions in the detailed view are also highlited according to filters.
• Tables / VPS Tables: Add filter on last update date: in VPS Tables tab, add a new filter on last update date of VPS table versions.
• Tables / VPS Tables: Table format filtering: Add grouping of Zen Studio tables (FX, FX2, FX3) and highlight VPS table versions based on the table format selection

Bugfixes

• Added 7-zip support: Actually it was there since the .rar support, but we forgot to add the .7z suffix to dialogs and drag-and-drop filters.
• Added RAR support for MacOS (ARM): The sevenzip library that is used for .rar files has been replaced with a patched version that is supposed to work for macOS with ARM.
• Detection of VPX emulator: check presence of VPX files within the table folder of the emulator
• Maintenance Mode: Fixed issue that the Windows taskbar is not shown when the Studio is exited and this mode was enabled.
• Tables / Validation of assets with image and video: When Asset validation is set to video and the tables contains a video asset and an image one, the validation was claiming an error when it shouldn't .
• Highscore Parsing: Fixed "Red & Ted's Road Show" highscore.
• Maintenance Mode: Fixed issue that the Windows taskbar is not shown when the Studio is exited and this mode was enabled.
• Emulator Detection: Improved the way emulator types are determined.

VPin Mania

• Window 11 Support: Fixed cabinet registration issue for Windows 11.

3.8.0

Release Notes 3.8

• Drop-In Folder: Trash-bin support: Files deleted from the drop-in folder menu are not deleted anymore, but moved to the trash-bin.
• Drop-In Folder: Added subfolders support : The drop-ins folder can now contains sub-folders that are also monitored. The drop-in section displays all files flat from the tree structure.
• DOFLinx Support: You can select your DOFLinx installation in the preferences now and auto-start it this way together with the VPin Studio Server. If configured, it will also appear inside the System Manager and can be updated there.
• Tables / Backglass Manager: Playlists Filtering : Added the possibility to filter backglasses by playlists as it is possible in the tables tab.
• Tables / VPS Tables: Search Result Highlighting: Inside the VPS Tables tab, not only the table component is filtered but the VPS table versions in the detailed view are also highlited according to filters.
• Tables / VPS Tables: Add filter on last update date: in VPS Tables tab, add a new filter on last update date of VPS table versions.
• Tables / VPS Tables: Table format filtering: Add grouping of Zen Studio tables (FX, FX2, FX3) and highlight VPS table versions based on the table format selection

Bugfixes

• Added 7-zip support: Actually it was there since the .rar support, but we forgot to add the .7z suffix to dialogs and drag-and-drop filters.
• Added RAR support for MacOS (ARM): The sevenzip library that is used for .rar files has been replaced with a patched version that is supposed to work for macOS with ARM.
• Detection of VPX emulator: check presence of VPX files within the table folder of the emulator
• Maintenance Mode: Fixed issue that the Windows taskbar is not shown when the Studio is exited and this mode was enabled.
• Tables / Validation of assets with image and video: When Asset validation is set to video and the tables contains a video asset and an image one, the validation was claiming an error when it shouldn't .
• Highscore Parsing: Fixed "Red & Ted's Road Show" highscore.
• Maintenance Mode: Fixed issue that the Windows taskbar is not shown when the Studio is exited and this mode was enabled.
• Emulator Detection: Improved the way emulator types are determined.

VPin Mania

• Window 11 Support: Fixed cabinet registration issue for Windows 11.

3.7.2

Release Notes 3.7.2

Note that a progress dialog will come up once your update is finished, see notes below!!!

Bugfixes

• Media Cache: For generating highscore cards and backglass previews, the Studio extracts the data from backglasses and other sources. Unfortunately the generation of these assets were stored with non-unique names, so this index must be regenerated. You can do that manually in the server settings but the Studio will also regenerate it once after showing the release notes dialog.

  

• VPin Studio Server Tray: Fixed the "Launch Studio" action from the context menu of the tray icon.

• Table Parser: Fixed issue in the VPX script analyzer which caused the missing resolving for highscore textfile names.

• CSV Exporter: Tables: Added missing escaping of delimiters.

• CSV Exporter: Backglasses: Fixed export errors caused by the wrong media index and improved the performance there.

• Highscore Parsing: Increased support of VPReg.stg file based highscores. A few more highscore patterns are supported now, mainly used from seventies EM tables.

• Table Overview / Initial Selection: Tried once again to fix an initial selection issue which is leading to a deadlock for some users.

• Table Overview / Table Importer Dialog: Fixed initialization of the emulator combobox.

• Table Overview / Table Uploads: Fixed issue that newly uploaded tables do not appear for the "Just Added" playlist.

• Table Overview / Table Uploads: Fixed issue that media has been duplicated instead of replaced when "replace" was selected as upload option.

• Table Overview / PUP Packs: Improved calculation of the correct PUP pack folder inside a table bundle (hopefully, it's a tricky one; "Stranger Things 4" issue).

• Table Overview / PUP Packs: Fixed PUP pack detection by also checking .mkv files.

• Drop-in Folder: The delete action moves files to the trash-bin now, instead of deleting them irrecoverably.

• Table Uploads: Fixed issue that nvram files have not been extracted when uploaded as part of a bundle, e.g. "Big Bang Bar".

• Autostart: Changed the installer so that during the startup the console window does not pop up anymore. This change will only be applied to new installations.

3.7.1

Release Notes 3.7.1

Bugfixes

• Highscore Parsing: Refactored text parsers and moved all parsing information into the scoringdb.json file which is updated on every server startup. This way, all text file based highscores can now be updated without a separate Studio update. This work required a LOT(!) copy'n paste, so I hope it did not break any of the previously working highscores here.
• Table Overview: Fixed initial selection. Because the initial selection is done multiple times (the first row of the table), this resulted into a client crash for some users.
• Table Overview: Added sorting for the "Launcher" column.
• VPin Mania: Fixed broken table based highscore synchronization where no VPin Mania account was found.
• VPin Studio Launcher: Added asynchronous shutdown of broadcast thread which was looking for clients and may have caused a delayed Studio client startup.
• VPin Studio Client: Fixed initialization routine which prohibited the update of the VPS database when connected from remote.
• Backglass Manager: Fixed "Replace Media" option which did not check if a video or image is overwritten.

3.7.0

Release Notes 3.7.0

Changes

• Refactored Game Media Access: For performance optimization, the media access has been refactored widely. As a result, the table (re)load should be noticeable faster.

• Table Validators: Introduced new validator VPinMAME ROM Validation. The validator uses the results from the VPinMAME ROM tester to indicate possibly broken ROM files. The new validator is enabled by default.

• Highscore Card Editor: Added "Apply to all" button for the font selection which will apply the selected font to all available templates.

• Table Overview / Reload: A manual reload in the table overview results in additional cache invalidation of the server. This should pick-up all changes done manually by the user on the cabinet.

• Table Overview: Added new column "Launcher" which shows the .exe file that will be used for launching the table.

• Table Overview / Highscores: Switched order of highscore graph and highscore card.

• iScored Integration: Added the additional tag support for vps:singlescore. If you apply this tag to a table in iScored, the VPin Studio will only submit a highscore to iScored if the user has not posted any other score for that table yet - no matter if the new score is higher or not.

• Pause Menu: Added additional info about the highscore data (if supported or not).

• PinVol 2.2: Added PinVol version 2.2. The new .exe file will automatically be downloaded by the server.

• VPBM 3.3: Updated to VPBM 3.3 (finally).

  • Renamed Table Repository to Table Backups. VPBM does not need additional exports anymore, so this renaming should make the whole usage more intuitive.
  • Removed "Repositories" from the settings. The idea to support multiple sources or targets for backups was not bad, but the implementation was not mature enough. It may be picked up again in the future.
  • Applied some performance optimizations from VBPM to the Studio integration.
  • Added support for the additional external host ids.
  • Added missing button tooltips and changed labels.

• Shortcuts: Several shortcuts have been introduced to improve the accessibility of the Studio. You find an overview in the "Help & Support" section of the preferences.

• Studio Toolbar Design: The toolbar design has been streamlined. The reload and filter buttons and search inputs have all the same order and size now. Also search input fields support Strg+F and ESC inputs for a better accessibility.

• VPin Studio Launcher: Add auto discovery of VPin Studio Server instances. For VPin Studio Servers running in the same network, the VPin Studio Launcher will now auto-detect the server instance(s). So no more manual IP lookups!

  

• Discord Maintenance Updates: You can now select a Discord channel where updates are posted when you upload new tables or replace existing ones on your cabinet. If you share your VPin with a bunch of people (like I do), you can let them know this way if there are new tables available.

  

  The channel is configurable for the Discord BOT in the preferences.

  

• Toolbar: Added System Shutdown menu item to the header toolbar menu. Note that the item is only visible when you work remote.

  

• Backglass Manager / Backglass images to media assets: Added the ability to extract the images inside the directb2s (Backglass + DMD) and use them as respective table media assets. If a media asset already exists, the image can replace or be appended to the collection.

  

Bugfixes

• Highscore Cards Popups: Properly centered highscore card when "show on table launch" option is used for highscore cards.
• Uploads: Fixed issue with uploading files with filename length smaller than three characters (e.g. "24" - Damn you, Jack!).
• Table Asset Manager / Playlists: Fixed asset search for playlists. We somehow forgot that. You can now search the frontend's asset database for media for your playlists, e.g. "music".
• Highscore Parsing: Added additional lowercase check for VPReg.stg based highscores ("HELLBOY" problem).
• Highscore Parsing: Added test coverage for over 50 new text file and VPReg.stg file based highscores and added an applicable parser if missing.
• System Manager / Visual Pinball: Fixed issue that the parent folder of the "Tables" folder was used for the VPX system manager component (instead of the actual installation folder). Some users have selected a different folder just for the tables.
• Table Data Manager: Fixed dialog sizing issues.
• Backglass Data Exporter:
  • Fixed wrong DMD image information (the data was always read from the backglass image).
  • Added additional data from the backglass settings.
• ALT Sound: Added missing cache invalidation after deletion of ALT sound packages.
• PUP Pack Uploads: Increased maximum file size for uploads to 10GB.
• Drop-In Menu: Fixed file lock and refresh issues.

VPin Mania

• Player Ranking: Added pagination to the players view, so the list is not limited to 100 anymore.
• Navigation: Fixed several navigation issues.
• Player Statistics Tab: The view has become a small revamp, showing the players rank now too.

3.6.1

Release Notes 3.6.1

Bugfixes

• Splash Screen: Fixed rendering of splash screen for Linux clients.
• Table Uploads: Fixed file filter which had a missing wildcard for .rar files.
• Table Overview: Fixed filtered table refresh after changes have been made that affect the currently filtered tables.
• Server Installer: Fixed invalid .NET version check.

Release Notes 3.6.0

Changes

• Data Exporter: Added a new headless API (without UI) to export data in CSV format from the VPin Studio server. The usage of the API is documented here: https://github.com/syd711/vpin-studio/wiki/Data-Export. Note that this API is a first draft and likely to change, so don't consider it as stable yet in case you build your own tools based on it. Right now, it includes the following endpoints:

  • Table Data Exporter: Exports all table metadata of the selected tables.
  • Highscore Exporter: Exports all highscores of the selected tables.
  • Backglass Exporter: Exports the backglass metadata of the selected .directb2s files.
  • Table Media Exporter: Exports the number of media for available for every screen of the selected tables.

• Highscore Card: The canvas is centered automatically now when no left/right margins are set.

• Highscore Card: The non-raw highscore list is centered automatically now when no left/right margins are set.

• Windows VPin Studio Server Tray: Added option to launch the Studio. The action is also executed on double-click on the tray icon.

• Studio Client Toolbar: Added mute/unmute option to system preferences drop-down menu.

  

• Table Asset Manager Added option to call the video conversion scripts from the PinUP Poppper "Recordings" folder.

  

• Table Asset Manager Added new "info" button which shows all metadata of images, videos and mp3 files.

  

• DMD Images in Backglass Manager: Added ability to add/replace/remove a full dmd image to a backglass. The DMD image zone also supports drag and drop.

  

• Jobs Menu: Re-implemented the jobs menu which is responsible for long running task like PUP pack extractions. The progress is now properly displayed and cancelable (if possible). Finished jobs stay inside the menu until they are removed manually.

  

• Client Settings / Windows Network Share: Added MacOS Support.

• System / Open Folder & Open File: Added MacOS Support.

• Table Overview / VPS Updates: VPS update indicators are now shown even if the asset is not installed. Previously, the update arrow icon was only shown when there was an existing asset already available. This way, you get notified about additional ALT sound or PUP packages which are often released later on for existing tables.

• Table Overview / MAME Alias Mapping: Added auto-sorting on save when then VPMAlias.txt file is edited.

• Table Overview: Added "Date Updated" column.

Bugfixes

• Table Overview / Backglass Manager: Missing sync between VPX filename changes and backglass manager.
• Highscore Card Editor / Performance: Fixed performance issue that the view caused to load all available games.
• Highscore Card Editor / Fonts: Fixed rendering of fonts. This one has been a flow right from the beginning. You finally get what you see when you select a font from the font selector, including the font weight and style. The issue that not all true-type-fonts (ttf files) have been rendered properly has been fixed too.
• ALT Sound: .ini files are not ignored anymore when installed via upload.
• Table Uploads: Existing .vbs files are deleted on table replacements now.
• Studio Installation : Added Popper version check on install.
• Notifications: Fixed issue that the notifications were no shown anymore, because the check if VPX is runnning returned always true for some users.
• Smaller Screen Support:
  • Fixed most views of the tables section to be useable for 1280x768 pixel (there are still open ends!).
  • The Studio window has a minimum allowed size of 1280x700 pixel now.
  • Fixed navigation and header toolbar to be useable on screen with smaller resolutions too.
• PinballX Frontend:
  • Fix small issues in Stats and Favorites.
  • Full support of pinballX.ini in UTF-8 or UTF-16.